Forgotten Memory
by Holly Took
Summary: The tragic telling of when John stopped believing.


Forgotten Memory  
  
When we were young, we all wished we could meet Peter Pan. And indeed, if you knew his name since you could remember, there is a good chance you did indeed meet him, but time has since made the encounter seem a fuzzy dream. Such is the way when it comes to memories of Peter. The sprightly boy cannot himself recall much after a few moments' passing. His reality exists only in the present, and therefore, thoughts of the past have little meaning to him.  
For the rest of us, however, the past does matter, and so we must remember much of it. Some things we may wish to forget; some things we don't wish to let go of. But some things slip out of your head when you least expect them to, like a hat might be scooped up by the wind, and by the time you have realized what has happened, the memory is beyond recall.  
  
~*~  
  
"Goodnight, my darlings," whispered Mrs. Darling after planting a sweet kiss upon the heads of her progeny.  
  
"Goodnight, mother," they replied just before the door to the nursery clicked shut.  
  
Once the sound of Mrs. Darling's footfalls had receded, Michael hopped up in his bed. He was too full of energy on this night to fall directly asleep. Having known this, he had carefully planned not to protest his bedtime, but instead to play at his wont when his mother had tucked them in. He giggled softly in his mischievous glee.  
  
"John, are you awake?" he asked, but then wavered, for fear that he had spoken too loudly.  
  
"Of course I am!" John threw his blankets off of his legs and swung himself to his feet.  
  
"You two! Mother wouldn't like it if she knew you were up after she has put out the light." Wendy scolded them from her comfortable position under covers.  
  
"Mother doesn't have to worry. We will be quiet enough," John assured her. Wendy shook her head, then let it fall back onto her soft pillow. Her rest was shortly interrupted by a bubbly little Michael, who tugged eagerly at her blankets.  
  
"Come on, Wendy, tell us a story!"  
  
"Mother already told you a story, now, back in bed!"  
  
"But it wasn't one about Peter Pan! She never tells those ones anymore."  
  
Only now it struck Wendy that this was quite true: their mother had not told stories about Peter Pan for a long time. Perhaps she had forgotten them, or thought the children were too old for such fantasies. All the same, Wendy recalled his adventures, and she would continue to relay them to the boys.  
  
Michael's pleading eyes convinced her. Wendy's face broke into a smile and she nodded. "Very well, then!" She paused for Michael's to cheer, then, once they had seated themselves on the window seat, she inquired, "Which one shall it be?"  
  
"The story of Peter and the mushrooms!" he chimed in, bouncing on his bottom with delight.  
  
Wendy's eyes lit up at the sight of his pure rapture. "Alright, then! John, are you going to listen, too?"  
  
John had been wandering about the room, stretching his legs, and basically burning whatever extra energy kept him from sleeping. Presently, he was by the dresser. He snapped his head toward Wendy as if suddenly awoken from distraction.  
  
"Hm? Oh.no, I've heard that one enough."  
  
"Oh?" Wendy cocked her head at this. John had never show disinterest when it came to Pan stories. "I didn't think I had told that story for a while.."  
  
John shrugged. He placed his hand flat on the dresser's surface; he spread his fingers out and pressed them against the mahogany top. By the dim starlight, he inspected his hand: the fingers were longer and wider, his nails thicker. His skin felt rougher than it used to be, dryer, no longer a silken texture. It was a changed hand. It had grown.  
  
Michael poked Wendy's knee-the closest extremity within reach-to remind her that she had an impatient listener awaiting the tale. So the girl recounted the story at full length. Once the story was told, Wendy received generous applause from her youngest brother.  
  
"Oh, I'm glad! I do love that one!" he exclaimed almost too noisily.  
  
"A little less noise, there, Michael, mother will hear you!" said John without thinking.  
  
"Why, John, you sound like father!" Michael remarked with a laugh, but Wendy didn't find it amusing.  
  
Michael plopped himself onto her lap and contented himself with twirling a lock of her hair. "Wendy, I wish we could visit Peter again. I do miss him."  
  
"Yes, we all miss him, but he'll come back soon enough."  
  
"Why can't we go fly to him? We know the way to Neverland: second star to the right, then straight on till morning." Michael often asked this, but he always disregarded the matter of the fairy dust. In his mind, happy thoughts were the only essentials. Before Wendy could remind him, John spoke up.  
  
"That can't be the right way!" he argued, as if he had suddenly gained insight into a puzzling riddle.  
  
Wendy and Michael looked surprised. "What do you mean, John? Of course that's the way to Neverland. Peter said so," Wendy proclaimed.  
  
"But." John approached the window, his eyes pointing up into the deep, dark bowl of sky, searching for something. Then it dawned on him. "There is no second star to the right! There are just a whole bunch of stars all over the place, and no one star to start from."  
  
"You're wrong!" Michael insisted. The concept that John brought up was foreign to him, but strangely, it had crossed Wendy's mind once or twice. She had always just brushed it away, however, thinking that the logic of it didn't really matter, for they could always find their way there somehow, even if the directions were make-believe.  
  
"Oh, yeah, then point it out to me, which one is it?" John placed his fists on his hips and looked hard at Michael.  
  
Michael squinted defiantly back at him for a moment, then twisted his head up at the sky that hung outside their nursery window. His shining eyes swept all over, and each star seemed to whisper a promise, but whenever he thought he had found the right one, the one beside it would confuse him. He raised his little finger to point to it, but wherever he pointed, he could not trace the path of his finger to any one star. And so he dropped his hand in frustration and wound Wendy's tress tightly around an innocent finger.  
  
"See?" John bragged.  
  
Quite disturbed, Wendy knit her brow and looked sharply to John. "What are you trying to prove?"  
  
He didn't think he was trying to prove anything at first, but when he got to thinking about it, he realized. "That there is no way to Neverland."  
  
"No!" Michael immediately cried out and clutched at Wendy.  
  
"John, don't say such things!"  
  
"It's true! It's impossible to get there! It can't be a real place!" John's voice was climbing higher. His eyes turned round and fiery as he spoke. The epiphany made him feel giddy, almost mad, for it all seemed to come together for him. So many times he had heard that enchanting line, and every time he believed in it. It would charm him into ignoring reason. But his growing mind could not help groping for logic, and once he challenged the story, probed at its stilts, he discovered the illogic of it all, and thus discredited it.  
  
Michael's sobs kept him from adding more. Gently, Wendy tried to soothe him, the poor, naïve boy who was not yet ready to disbelieve.  
  
"Don't be a baby, Michael," chided John.  
  
"I can be a baby if I want to!" Michael whimpered between sniffles. Exasperatedly shaking his head, he returned to his bedside.  
  
After a few minutes, Michael settled down. Wendy sang softly in his ear to make him smile. The sorrow drained from his eyes, Michael consented to being tucked back into bed. The ordeal had prepared him for sleep, certain enough, and his dreams that night would wash away any doubts he had about the Neverland's existence.  
  
Before retiring, Wendy crept over to John's bed and spoke low and sternly. "John, how could you say that? Have you forgotten that we have been to Neverland?"  
  
His eyes bore into hers; they were no longer illuminated by the starlight. John blinked once. "I don't know, Wendy.."  
  
~*~  
  
And so John did forget their adventure in the Neverland. After that night, he could never remember it clearly. Or, rather, what he did recall, he could never fully believe. 


End file.
